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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146150">Kinsman and Uncle</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas'>basketofnovas (slashmarks)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Eight Days of Luke - Diana Wynne Jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:22:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid and David, minus the three unpleasant relations busy fleeing the police, figure out what happens next.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>David Allard &amp; Astrid Price, Luke/Sigyn (Eight Days of Luke)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Kinsman and Uncle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyphomandra/gifts">Cyphomandra</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from a translated kenning of Loki's. I hope my recipient enjoys this!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Astrid drove back to the house in her Mini. There did not seem to be anywhere else to go. It was strange to think that it was empty, David thought, staring at the gardens, the front face, the light on downstairs...</p>
<p>“Mrs. Thirsk,” David said, startled. It was not empty after all.</p>
<p>“They must not have told her they were fleeing the country,” Astrid said. “She’s probably making dinner.”</p>
<p>David and Astrid looked at each other. </p>
<p>“Oh, no,” Astrid said, and put the Mini back on. “Let’s go out somewhere. I want to eat food with a flavor other than brown.”</p>
<p>“I’m not that hungry,” agreed David, although he was extremely tired and starving besides, having been out of time for several days walking through the eternal fire.</p>
<p>“I suppose you’ll want to let her go,” Astrid said, some time later, weaving through town and looking for somewhere to park the Mini. </p>
<p>“Me?” said David, and then remembered what Astrid had said about how it was funny the Mini really belonged to him. “The house, too?”</p>
<p>“All your money,” Astrid confirmed. “From your mother’s family, and you know - or do you? - that they’re all from your father’s side?”</p>
<p>David nodded. He could not recall ever having heard much about his parents from any of his relations, but this basic sort of fact he had been allowed. He thought about going back to the house - as they were bound to do after they finished eating - and telling Mrs. Thirsk that he was now the rightful owner of the house, always assuming she would believe this was not some sort of joke, and to get out or at least stop cooking. After that they would have to take up living there, only instead of coming down in the morning to Uncle Bernard and Astrid playing the illness game and eating supposed food for breakfast, it would just be him and Astrid. They would rattle about in the house while he thudded up and down the stairs in ways he had been scolded for, went to sleep in the same room he had been banished to...</p>
<p>“Do you suppose I could sell it?” he said to Astrid.</p>
<p>Astrid did not look surprised. “It <em>is</em> yours,” she said. “I don’t know what’s to be done about all the money they already spent - I suppose Mr. Fry will know - but I don’t think there would be a problem with you getting some of what they spent on the house back. We can find someone to take care of that part.”</p>
<p>“Great,” David said, with a feeling of immense relief. “When did you tell Alan’s mum we were taking the rooms for?”</p>
<p>“I said I wasn’t sure, but she told me any time just as soon as I paid the deposit,” Astrid said. “I suppose it’s a bit late to just show up now, but I can call her tomorrow and see. I suppose,” and here she gave a funny, nervous look to David, “I’ll have to ask you for a loan to cover it - just until I can find someone who needs a typist.”</p>
<p>“A loan?” David said, feeling somewhat indignant. “If I’ve got all this money...” Then he stopped, uncertain how to end the sentence. The fact of the money had not really settled in. None of it had.</p>
<p>“It’s still my job to look after you, I’m not going to spend your money now I know it’s yours,” Astrid said. “I wish I’d asked more questions years ago.” David saw that she felt very bad about it, maybe worse than she had felt about losing Cousin Ronald earlier, and wished he knew what to say.</p>
<p>“How did you end up marrying Cousin Ronald, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, you seem so much more...” He trailed off, realizing he was making matters worse. </p>
<p>Astrid, however, was laughing. “Nicer?” she said. “You’ve forgotten about the last six years so quickly, have you?”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter now,” David said, and hoped she knew he meant it.</p>
<p>It happened that as they were walking back to Astrid’s car after the meal they came upon Alan, so they did not have to spend the night rattling around the house by themselves. Instead they stopped long enough to pick up their things and Astrid spoke to Mrs. Thirsk, and then they went on to the house on Wednesday Hill. David wondered, startled by recognition of the name, if it was why Mr. Wedding’s ravens had been able to show him the way through. Once they arrived at the house, David took a look around the rooms. They were small, and furnished a bit shabbily, but they were also private and did not have a trace of memory of Uncle Bernard or Aunt Dot or Cousin Ronald. “Fantastic,” he said to Astrid when she came up. </p>
<p>“I’m glad they meet your highness’s approval,” said Astrid, although she looked amused. “I’ll call Mr. Fry in the morning and see about finding someone to sell the house for you, and we’ll find out what I can afford once I’ve got a job.” She also seemed lighter somehow in the new rooms, David decided, looking at her, and her face was no longer so pinched or pale as it had been.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Late that night, David woke with a start. He didn’t know where he was, only that it was unfamiliar: not the dormitory at school and not his old room. The hostile dark crushed in around him, and there seemed to be a gray figure at the end of his bed, looming over him. No, it was not one gray figure, and not two either, but three, staring at him accusatively, watching him. They chattered to each other and he could not make out the words, but he understood that they were discussing him and his wrongdoing.</p>
<p>If only, David thought, feeling his heart pound, he could strike a match - if he could light a match, Luke would come - but he couldn’t move.</p>
<p>He didn’t know how long his terror lasted, or how long he lay in bed, listening to the gray figures discussing him angrily, but it ended just as suddenly as it had begun. David blinked, and in the next moment he was sitting upright, panting for breath, and the room was empty.</p>
<p>It was still unfamiliar, but he knew why, now. This was one of the small rooms upstairs, in what was almost a top floor flat except that it lacked a kitchen or anything. Now that he was quite awake, he saw that the room was empty aside from him and the cot-like bed and a few shelves, and he saw that the gray, shimmering figures were in fact moonlight, shining gently on the wall.</p>
<p>He was about to tell himself it had all been a dream, and turn over and try to go back to sleep, when he began to wonder where he had seen three figures like that before, and he remembered with just as horrid a start the three Knowing Ones under the tree, the Knowing Ones who had been reached - and could perhaps reach him - by the cupboard downstairs, in the basement.</p>
<p>David knew at once that he would not be able to go back to sleep without checking. It had only been a way through to the tree, and maybe it had closed. Maybe it hadn’t <em>really</em> been this house at all, for the entire thing seemed incredible now that it was over. Carefully, he put on his slippers and a jumper over his pajamas. He tiptoed out into the hall, past the open doorway to the room where Astrid was snoring, and down the steep stairs from their rooms to the main house. Guiltily, he hoped that no one else would be in the basement at this time of night to catch him. </p>
<p>Luck was with him, for he encountered no one as he made his way as quietly as he could down the creaky steps and managed, this time, not to trip over Alan’s cricket bat. The long basement room was dark and quiet. It occurred to him, looking at the cupboards to the left of the fireplace, that he actually would rather have liked to have company. But he had made it this far alone, and he didn’t want to go all the way back to wake up Astrid now, so he went on and put his hands on the shelves.</p>
<p>He had nearly convinced himself they would be solid and impossible to move, that the doorway through must be closed now. But when he pushed the shelves began, again, to turn, and a solid shaft of strange sunlight shone through the crack despite the fact that it was roughly two in the morning and there shouldn’t have been any sun whatsoever in this part of the world.</p>
<p>Rapidly, he pulled the cupboard straight again. He wasn’t sure whether the Knowing Ones had meant their last statement about him not having an easy life as a threat or merely a statement of fact, but he didn’t want to find out. He hoped that the dream of them looming above his bed had indeed been only a dream.</p>
<p>That was a bad thought to have, at night in a strange house, with a stranger door leading outside of time before him. David climbed back up all of the steps to his room, but he didn’t go back to bed. He couldn’t quite face the idea. Instead he shut the door to his new room and put the lights on, and he took out his matches.</p>
<p>He hesitated again. Luke had not put an end date when he said he would always come if David struck a match. Anyway, he had <em>also</em> said he would see them Monday earlier, and it was now - technically - Monday. But now that David knew who Luke was...</p>
<p>It was summon Luke, wake up Astrid, or try to go back to bed alone in the dark. David struck a match.</p>
<p>“It <em>is</em> Monday, isn’t it?” Luke said, from where he was sitting on the bed. David blinked and went the rest of the way into the room. “Were you waiting for it to be technically late enough? No shame if you were.”</p>
<p>“Not exactly,” David said, going to join Luke, and confessed about the Knowing Ones before he had time to feel bad about the whole thing, including - reluctantly - the nightmare he had woken from of them hovering above his bed.</p>
<p>“No, once a door is open like that it’s there, at least until it’s shut,” Luke said, once he had finished. He did not seem to feel David was stupid for worrying.</p>
<p>“Should I go and apologize for stealing their eye?” David said miserably, before he had time to consider who he was talking to.</p>
<p>Luke, indeed, laughed at the idea. “I could go and talk to them for you, but they don’t like me either,” he said. “Oh, but I know, we can have Sigyn do it.”</p>
<p>“Sigyn?” said David, trying to think if he knew the name.</p>
<p>“My wife,” said Luke, making David sit up straight and blink several times at the idea of Luke having a wife. “You saw her, she was the one who came up and touched my arm when they were going at me the first time. She knows what to do to stop people being angry - well, better than I do. Shall I go get her?”</p>
<p>“She’s the one who held the bowl, isn’t she?” David said, realizing why he knew the name. “When you were in prison.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Luke said, and scowled. “Which meant she had to stay in prison the entire time I was, too, even though she didn’t kill Baldur. She’s grateful to you, too,” he said, and he was gone before David could argue that he wasn’t sure if he would like to meet Sigyn in his pajamas.</p>
<p>He sat uncomfortably in the bare bedroom for a moment, thinking strange thoughts about how Luke seemed to be just his age, but was timeless as Loki, and also grown up enough to have a wife. Then he heard movement outside and jumped. But a moment later Astrid called, sleepily, “David? Is someone there with you?”</p>
<p>“Just Luke,” he said, and got up to open the door. “Sorry I woke you up.”</p>
<p>Astrid at night was wearing a velvety housecoat and her fair hair was down around her shoulders. She yawned. “It’s alright,” she said. “I thought you said something about nightmares?”</p>
<p>“Er, it’s just that I remembered that the way to the tree and the Knowing Ones is downstairs,” David said. “And it’s still open, I checked before calling Luke.”</p>
<p>“Not very happy with you, are they?” Astrid said; then she looked over David’s shoulder, her big blue eyes going bigger still.</p>
<p>“Hello,” said a woman’s voice behind him, and turning, David saw the red-headed girl from before. “We didn’t have a chance to talk before, but it’s so nice to meet you,” she said, smiling gently at David. He felt comfortable with her at once, and saw that in some ways she was nearly the opposite of Luke, who stood next to her. “I’m grateful to you for letting us out.”</p>
<p>“Sigyn, is it?” Astrid said, looking between her and Luke.</p>
<p>“You do know who I am,” Luke said to her, looking pleased. </p>
<p>“I guessed some time ago,” Astrid agreed. “I don’t know how David met you--”</p>
<p>“I was trying to curse Uncle Bernard,” David admitted, sheepishly. Everyone laughed, but he did not feel they were doing it <em>at</em> him, exactly. “So,” he said, “About the door downstairs...”</p>
<p>“I’ll go down and speak with them,” Sigyn said, and tilting her head slightly, “The... third door on the left from this direction, too, is it? I’ll just be a few minutes. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone,” she said to Luke, but with great affection, and she left.</p>
<p>“I’d offer you tea, but the kitchen’s not mine, and we might wake up the landlady,” Astrid said to Luke, stifling another yawn. “I suppose you’re going to be over all the time, are you?”</p>
<p>“Probably, yes,” Luke said, but smiled at her winningly in the same way he had charmed her when they first met, and Astrid laughed.</p>
<p>“Well, at least come sit in the sitting room while we wait, not on Luke’s bed,” she said, and went off to put the light on in the main room upstairs, which had a few chairs and a trunk for a coffee table in it. Luke asked about their plans now that they were on their own, and acted very interested in everything Astrid said, making it just a bit too over the top to be believable, so that she laughed instead of being offended by his pretend interest, and called him terrible.</p>
<p>Before too long, Sigyn was climbing the stairs again. David, who was too tired to participate much in Luke teasing Astrid with questions about being a typist, saw her first. She stood quietly at the top of the stairs for a moment, gazing at Luke with an expression that reminded David of Brunhilda’s sadness, only turned back over itself so it was happy, too; but she didn’t believe it, David saw. By looking at Luke she was trying to assure herself that he was really there.</p>
<p>Then Luke turned to look back at her, and the moment was broken. “Are the Fates appeased, then?” he asked.</p>
<p>“I spoke with them, and they agreed to seal off the door, in case David came and stole their eye again.” She slanted her eyes towards David again, who blushed indignantly, but she meant it gently and he found himself laughing, too. “Now,” Sigyn said, “Astrid - it is Astrid, isn’t it? Why don’t you come down and I’ll make sure that the landlady doesn’t wake while we have that tea you were wishing you could offer my husband. I hear you have a terrible one, yourself, we can compare notes.”</p>
<p>“I am nothing like that--” Luke started to object, but he looked at her and stopped.</p>
<p>“As I was saying,” Sigyn said comfortably, and Astrid got up, and left Luke and David alone together.</p>
<p>“Is it strange?” was the only thing David could think to say, when Astrid and Sigyn’s footsteps had receded down the stairs. “I mean, you look like you’re my age to me, but you’re not really.”</p>
<p>“I’m not really any age, am I?” Luke said, and shrugged. “I could look Astrid’s age - or your great uncle’s - and they would all be lies, and they would all be true. It’s a bit like the final battle that way, or Thor’s hammer being stolen. They thought I’d done it as revenge when you let me go, you remember, and it’s been missing a thousand years.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t understand that, either,” David admitted. “But the final battle... it’s not happening soon, then?” Relief swept him at that thought; he had not realized how worried he had been since Mr. Wedding mentioned it.</p>
<p>“It’s happening now,” Luke said, and grinned at the look on David’s face. “And it’s happening never, and it’s happening at the end of time. Don’t worry about it, it won’t help. I try not to.”</p>
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